Sweden to abide by NATO accession deal with Türkiye: Premier

By Atila Altuntas

STOCKHOLM (AA) - Sweden will comply with the terms of a trilateral memorandum signed at a NATO summit in June to address Türkiye's concerns on terrorism, the Scandinavian country's premier said on Tuesday.

"We agreed on a memorandum of understanding between Sweden, Turkey (Türkiye), and Finland. And of course, from the Swedish government's perspective, we will live according to the memorandum of understanding that we agreed upon," Magdalena Andersson said in a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Stockholm.

Andersson underlined that Sweden would process extradition requests from Türkiye according to Swedish and international law.

"That is also something that we agreed upon in this memorandum of understanding, and the case last week was according to Swedish and international law, and we will continue to work in that way," she added.

For his part, Scholz noted that 23 countries had approved the NATO membership of Sweden and Finland, expressing hope that Ankara would soon do the same.

Türkiye, Finland, and Sweden signed the memorandum on the Nordic countries' bids for NATO membership following four-way talks in Madrid.

The memorandum conditions Finland and Sweden to take steps on Türkiye's terrorism concerns, including the extradition of terror suspects, and lifts an arms embargo on Ankara.

In return, Türkiye allows the Nordic countries to become NATO members.

However, Türkiye accused Finland and Sweden of not complying with the deal as both nations failed to extradite terrorists sought by Ankara.

*Writing and contributed by Seda Sevencan